CONSERVATION
STRATEGIES FOR ANADROMOUS FISH
By Bill Bakke
Native
Fish Society
September 1994
INTRODUCTION:
Anadromous salmon and trout have been managed on the west coast of North America for over 140 years. This management has been ineffective, resulting in a loss of biological diversity, extinction, ESA listings, and reduced productivity of native fish fauna. The strong commitment to commodity production of salmonids among fish management institutions has eclipsed their conservation mission. As a result, fish management agencies have contributed as much or more to the decline of native salmonids as have other development interests. Since the people of the Northwest and the nation are being held accountable to the protection and recovery of native fish fauna through the Endangered Species Act, a new fish management institution must be formed. This paper examines this problem and recommends management reform measures.
IDENTIFY CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT UNITS:
The conservation management unit is the fundamental element in developing a conservation management plan. What is it we are trying to manage and protect? Currently, the fish management agencies and tribes do not have a definition of what it is they are trying to manage and have developed very few, if any, specific biological objectives to define their management programs. Define the management unit. This ought to be the stock and the substock structure. Use Ricker's definition of a stock. This would mean that each river has a distinct stock until proven otherwise. Within each river basin there may be a substock structure that can be identified by research as was done on the Yakima River where three spring chinook substocks were identified based on genetic and life history characteristics. A management program would then be developed to maintain this substock structure and thereby the identity, productive capacity and evolutionary potential of the stock being managed.
THE PROBLEM:
At present, the fish management agencies aggregate wild stocks from many river systems and hatchery produced fish into one or more harvest management units. For example, there are 96 Oregon coastal coho salmon stocks which have been combined into one stock for harvest management purposes. This stock is called Oregon Coastal Natural (OCN) Coho. Rather than having an escapement goal for each of the 96 coho stocks, the state has set a coastwise escapement goal of 200,000, which breaks down to about 42 spawners per mile. This gross treatment has been one of the reasons the coho runs collapsed and have been proposed for listing under the ESA. Small, less productive stocks will be lost under this kind of management. For example, Cummins Creek on the central Oregon Coast is a hydrologic wilderness area but coho seeding is only 11% of capacity, suggesting that there are too few spawners escaping the fishery to maintain the reproduction potential of this stock. This commodity driven management program is similar for other species and stocks throughout Oregon and other west coast states.
Another problem is that the stock structure is not defined. This means that a river may have more than one stock of salmon or trout. Large river systems may have a number of substocks. When biologists take a close look at the genetic and life history characteristics of a river stock they often find a diversified stock structure. This is caused by adaptation within the stock to variable environments within a watershed. For example, in the Yakima subbasin of the Columbia River three substocks of spring chinook were identified. In the Grande Ronde River six substocks of spring chinook were found. These fish are distinct in terms of genetic and life history characteristics, meaning that they are diverging from an ancestral spring chinook stock as they adapt over time to the environmental conditions of their breeding streams. Similar substock structures have been found from California to Alaska. The problem is that not much time or money has been spent inventorying the biological diversity of salmonids over their range. A management program, to be successful in maintaining the genetic identity and the reproductive capacity of stocks, must make sure each stock or substock has enough adult spawners, over the entire spectrum of the spawning migration, to exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. Exceeding the carrying capacity maximizes the exchange of genetic information, allowing the stock to cope with environmental variability through natural selection. But harvest management is not organized to conserve stocks let alone the substock structure of salmon and trout on the west coast. However, effective conservation management of salmon and trout requires that this biological diversity be maintained coast-wide.
INVENTORY THE BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY OF SALMONIDS:
Once the conservation management unit is identified then a complete inventory of the biological diversity of salmonids must be undertaken, over the whole range, to determine the genetic and life history attributes of each stock. This may result in identification of substock structure. A conservation management plan would then be developed for each stock based on this benchmark information. Management ought to be treated as an experiment and evaluated against this benchmark data. This would cause management to be data driven. Also, management would be driven by the natural production requirements of native salmonids. A management program evaluated against this biological diversity baseline would allow the management agencies to identify measurable biological objectives and effectively use adaptive management (learn by doing) since changes in the baseline would trigger a review of and changes in the management program to make it conform to the baseline. This is fundamental to conservation management for native salmonids. Failure to act on data that indicates a loss of biological diversity would be identified in an annual conservation audit.
THE PROBLEM:
At the present time there is very little information on the biological diversity of native salmonids in Oregon or the west coast. This work has not been funded, even though policy has been adopted by some agencies to collect this information. The most striking example of this failure to implement a biological diversity inventory is in the Columbia River Basin where fish agencies and tribes have refused to complete a plan for conserving genetic diversity and improve conservation of biological diversity since 1991 (Section 6.2A Strategy For Salmon, N.W. Power Planning Council). An inventory of biological diversity is necessary in order to provide the fundamental data information on stocks and stock structure so that conservation management can be implemented. The agencies have refused to develop this information fearing that it will be used against them. For example, a mixed stock harvest program could not be justified unless it was conducted to maintain the biological diversity of the various species. It is unlikely that mixed stock ocean or river harvest programs could be maintained if this information were available and a monitoring program were in place to measure the effects of harvest on biological diversity and reproductive success of natural populations. If for political reasons, the fish agencies and tribes are unwilling to collect this information, then an independent party should be contracted to do the work.
MONITORING AND EVALUATION:
Once the management units are defined and their genetic and life history attributes identified (biological diversity), and measurable biological objectives are established, management is evaluated to determine whether these management units or stocks are functioning above the replacement line and whether the biological organization of the stocks is being maintained. Results from this monitoring and evaluation effort would be reported to the relevant management agencies so that management changes can be implemented. This monitoring and evaluation function must be conducted by an independent scientific group. A report on the findings of the monitoring and evaluation program would be available to the public.
THE PROBLEM:
At the current time there is no monitoring of the fish management program to determine whether objectives for conserving biological diversity are being met annually. Typically, monitoring and evaluation programs, if they exist at all, are poorly funded. At this time it is impossible to know what biological changes management is forcing on a stock or how to change management to provide enough relief for the stock to recover. Without biological objectives, monitoring and evaluation efforts are ineffective and conservation management by biological objective is impossible. Even though most fish agencies are bound by law to conserve the resource, the lack of data on biological diversity, the lack of biological objectives for management, and the lack of monitoring, there is no effective way for the agency to assess its management program. In addition, without this information, the public does not have the ability to advocate effective conservation management programs. Management and management reform are data driven, but the absence of data makes adaptive management and management reform impossible. The fish management agencies have perfected the principle of "No data, No problem."
INDEPENDENT CONSERVATION AUDIT:
An independent conservation audit must be created because resource management agencies have an unworkable dual function. Commodity production has eclipsed the conservation obligations of natural resource management agencies such that anadromous salmon runs continue to decline, are listed for protection under the ESA, or are going extinct. The conservation audit would be performed by a separate agency that would monitor and evaluate the annual salmonid management program. It would probably be a federal agency with a broad mandate to conserve native stocks and the enforcement ability to preempt state, federal, and tribal management actions. The conservation audit would function as described above. The responsibility of the federal conservation audit program would be to monitor the compliance of fish management and habitat management programs to determine whether they are contributing to the long-term health of native salmonid resources in the region. In this way fish and habitat management programs would not only be evaluated, they would have the benefit of scientific peer review. Based on the conservation audit, the management agencies would be expected to change operations to meet the standards for native salmonid protection and conservation. The conservation audit should be applied to all agencies that have an effect on native salmonids and their habitats. Consequently, there would be an annual audit to determine whether forestry operations, hydro dam operations, mining and grazing and agriculture were protecting the biological diversity of native salmonids. This would require the setting of objectives by stock for each of these agencies by watershed. It is unreasonable to believe that improved conservation management by the fish agencies and tribes would be able to provide the protection needed for each stock without compliance by land and water management agencies with specific, measurable conservation objectives.
THE PROBLEM:
At the present time there is no conservation audit program within state, federal or tribal agencies. Since those agencies have a built-in conflict of interest and have a history of failing to meet conservation objectives, an independent conservation audit is necessary.
MORATORIUM ON NEW HATCHERY DEVELOPMENT AND REFORM OF EXISTING HATCHERIES:
No new hatcheries should be constructed and existing hatchery operations should be reformed in order to protect native salmonids. Until the cumulative effects of the current hatchery programs on native salmonids can be determined, no new hatcheries should be constructed. All new federal hatcheries or federally funded hatcheries should be subject to NEPA review. Existing hatcheries must be reformed to meet biological objectives for native salmonids. Gene conservation protocols must be developed for each hatchery. Mitigation for hydro dams should be restructured to provide funding to restore natural production areas rather than replacing wild salmonids with hatchery fish. This can be accomplished through new hydro dam licenses and relicensing. Hatchery operations that rely on the transfer of stocks between basins must be terminated in order to protect the integrity of native stocks. Biological objectives must be set for each hatchery and for hatcheries in combination to maintain conservation management of native stocks exposed to hatchery stocks or harvest of hatchery fish. Production and contribution standards should be established per hatchery and the cost per returning adult should not exceed the value of that fish to the fishery. All hatcheries should be licensed so that there is periodic public review, providing a process to reform or terminate hatchery operations based on new information. A ten year license is recommended.
THE PROBLEM:
The effect of the hatchery program on native salmonids has not been fully evaluated, but there is enough scientific information to conclude that hatcheries are having a detrimental effect on native salmonids. Hatcheries can cause the extinction of native stocks, degradation of their reproductive capacity through genetic and ecological interactions, and lead to over harvest of native stocks in mixed hatchery/wild stock fisheries. Hatcheries can also be a source of water quality pollution, spread disease, and consume dollars needed to improve the management of native stocks. All of these negative effects of the existing hatchery program must be controlled if hatcheries are to add to the abundance of salmonids rather than serve as a replacement of natural production.
STATE AND FEDERAL POLICY AND PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT:
It is critical that a coordinated state and federal policy be developed to perpetuate the biological diversity and productive capacity of native salmonids and their habitats. This would mean that each relevant fish, land and water management agency be involved. At this time state and federal agencies have conflicting missions regarding salmon habitat and management. Until this problem is addressed and resolved, a coherent salmon management and recovery mission cannot be developed and successfully implemented on the west coast.
Some priority policies and programs that must be developed to implement conservation management by the state and federal fish agencies are the following: